


Things Could Be Different

by DannyAnne



Category: Star Trek
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-14
Updated: 2013-07-14
Packaged: 2017-12-20 04:39:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/883038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DannyAnne/pseuds/DannyAnne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Leonard McCoy told Jim Kirk that he was a little shorthanded in medbay and that some extra hands (even the inexperienced kind) would be nice, he hadn’t expected a rip between two universes to be the proposed solution.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things Could Be Different

**Author's Note:**

> also posted on Tumblr [here](http://phantomfacesphantomshadows.tumblr.com/post/55427614736/things-could-be-different).

When Leonard McCoy told Jim Kirk that he was a little shorthanded in medbay and that some extra hands (even the inexperienced kind) would be nice, he hadn’t expected a rip between two universes to be the proposed solution.

Maybe Jim hadn’t directly suggested it, or brought about the event (to Leonard’s knowledge), but he sure looked damn happy when it presented itself.

It took a lot of explaining before the entire concept was understood. The moment it happened, the minds of everyone around jumped straight to the black hole incident that had screwed up their own timeline to begin with and dragged through a perfectly aged clone of the captain’s first officer.

But apparently there were more than one ways to open up passages through space and time. This one happened to be a flux in the natural order. At least, that was the simple way of putting it. It was an occurrence that was rare and dangerous if not handled correctly, but not completely unexpected. The situation itself was jarring but, according to Spock, most likely completely fixable.

_Most likely_ , Leonard had thought with a scowl as Jim clasped a hand on his shoulder, a slight look of awe on his face, and told him, “Bones, I think we’ve found your extra help.”

He couldn’t very well complain. Not when the _extra help_ was his own spitting image.

“There were bound to be other instances of duplication, doctor,” Spock had said when the crew had been convinced that letting a few stragglers from a parallel universe board the ship wouldn’t cause any galaxy wide destruction.

Leonard had frowned even more and said, “Spock, if you even begin to call it _logical_ I’m giving Jim my resignation letter today.”

The comment had been ignored.

Now Leonard was trapped in medbay (because he really _did_ have a lot of work thanks to the discovered dangers of wormholes on the planet’s surface and of a particularly nasty stomach bug going around their enclosed space of a home) and he had an overwhelming feeling of _don’t touch anything_ bubbling under his skin, one because the entire situation was unnerving beyond anything, seeing himself moving around the room (he even narrowed his eyes at the back of his counterpart’s head in a vague wash of curiosity for sights never seen), two because he still didn’t believe the assessment of paradoxes not actually being what legends made them out to be.

Thankfully, Jim was absorbed in getting the others in the small group (nobody bearing an immediate important recognition in Leonard’s eyes) worked out and settle while they all worked on how exactly to clean the mess up, so there was no ogling happening except from the patients conscious and clear enough to notice hey, these two kind of look exactly the same (except for the age, Leonard thought).

He was older and that felt a little more unnerving to Leonard than it should feel. There was a lead weight in the back of his mind, even while he shuffled around sickbeds and moved his hands through shelves of hypos. If this guy was coming from the same place the other Spock was coming from, then that meant the same rules applied, the most important one being that everything was different. His eyes worked their way over in the other’s direction multiple times and there was a clock ticking somewhere in his ears; an old fashioned, honest to God clock that grated at Leonard’s nerves.

If everything was different, then this was no warm guarantee that he would grow to be anything like this man. In fact, the situation was most likely the complete opposite.

_Most likely_ he thought.

The first real words he spoke to himself (which weren’t related to medical attention or tossed comments that earned him a quiet snort) were spoken over a poured drink and tiny glances. “So what should I call you?”

He got a quiet look and a lifted eyebrow and Leonard couldn’t help but stare and think, so _that_ was what Jim was always grumpy about.

“I suppose,” He twisted the small glass in his hand, “whatever comes easiest to you.”

God, was that what he sounded like? He’d gotten more from his mother than he had thought.

Leonard would have suggested they work by the same name system they set up with the other Spock but struck it down as not appropriate for two reasons: the blatant lack of system (because whatever he was calling Spock at the time, he just tagged an _other_ onto), and the more prominent variable that said they should probably not mention the presence of another person from the other universe besides the small team that had accompanied the doctor.

“Maybe we can just avoid names all together,” Leonard suggested before embracing a strictly fuck it attitude and downing his drink.

“Some things don’t change.”

Leonard snorted and let another drink be poured for him. “Five years in an enclosed disease magnet beside the kid and the Vulcan? I’ve learned to hold a drink or two.”

“They looked younger, but still like themselves.” He downed his own drink. “More energy, though.” He tipped his glass in Leonard’s direction. “My condolences.”

“Yeah,” Leonard huffed, sipping at the liquid this time. “They’re more than I could ever handle.”

“Does Jim still refuse to acknowledge every shred of advice you went to school for?”

“Like I’m trying to give him the plague.”

“And Spock is still…”

“Spock,” Leonard said with an unexpected smile and half laugh that he automatically tried to drown in alcohol.

The look Leonard saw when he lifted his eyes had the clock ticking again. There was a fondness not leaking, but pooling in the eyes across from him.

“I really hope Jim hasn’t tried to pull the fake injuries on you.”

Leonard gave a questioning look.

“For about three weeks, he came to _me_ with the most superficial things just to try and show me up for complaining too much about his safety.”

“He just sends me on every damn beam down mission we get when he’s prissy.”

The words combined with Leonard’s distasteful expression drew an honest laugh and the ticking increased tenfold.

Leonard had to admit that he was a bit panicked throughout the exchange and he would be lying if he said he wasn’t letting the stories he was hearing get to him. With every relayed event the string strangling his chest grew thicker and tighter. It wasn’t just fondness filling those eyes (his eyes, difference in color be God damned), it was love; a love that spiked to dangerous peaks at regular intervals, leaving every other familiar emotion Leonard grasped at to bow down low into deep, unattractive valleys. He expected to find relief at some point, but it was forming oceans and he could practically taste the salt and it was making him thirsty.

He backed off with his own words and let himself slowly stop throwing out polite smiles and snorts and just drank and listened to the eventual silence that followed. He ignored the careful gaze set on him in favor of scrutinizing a far off wall and carding through everything in his mind.

They had talked to the other Spock enough to learn that not every stone was switched up and turned over (though, as Leonard had pointed out, some very key ones had been downright thrown over cliffs). So there was a very real possibility forming inside his limbs right now, the possibility that maybe he _would_ grow into the image sitting across from him and that meant, no doubt, that everything he dragged behind him and inside him would soon be swishing around in Leonard’s blood and brain.

It was a little more than terrifying. He could feel the drop in the roller coaster.

He stared at the still surface of his drink for a long time before tapping the glass and disturbing the smooth color of it. “Dad always says to enjoy whatever ride you get; more fun than getting off and missing the good parts.” He couldn’t help the smile and the short laugh that slipped out under his heavy breath.  
It was a dizzying moment on the other side of the glass and the words hit the air like a low note played at exactly the wrong instant, though Leonard didn’t seem to notice the shift in the atmosphere.

McCoy, the older, more out of place one, scratched his nails at the surface of his glass, attempting to dig into something steady but not finding that option available. It felt like fresh wind after too much rain, a sort of breeze that he never expected, and a feeling of weightlessness he’d only ever heard exaggerated about from patients.

The idea, the very notion that, in some obscure, should-be-impossible universe, his hands hadn’t had to pull the plug, hadn’t had to shake for months every time he looked at a first aid kit was an unexpectedly welcomed possibility.

He watched his younger self, some sort of vaguely hilarious opportunity that had only ever been joked about.

(“What would you do if _you_ could see your younger self now, Bones?”  
“Tell me not to join in on this death trap parade, Jim.”)

And he was suddenly struck with the violent need to let the events in this universe unfold untouched by his hands (the shaking mess that they were suddenly returning to).

He scratched again at the glass wrapped tightly between his fingers.

Nothing _needed_ to change, but it was a small comfort to know they could.


End file.
